Hi, Alexander!  Recently you wrote in a message to Alan Ianson:   
      
   ak>  I just try to find out the function   
        |I'm just trying   
      
   ak>  of "the" article   
        |the "the" article... just as Alan said.  While it may sound   
         rather awkward in this context, I'd have done the same.   
      
      
            Note to Alan:  I gather our friends from Russia have a heck of a time   
   with articles in English because they use them differently or not at all.  Oh,   
   and I won't correct your English unless you ask me to.  Alexander did....  ;-)   
      
      
      
   ak>  Theoretically, it should be used to single out a thing   
   ak>  out of the row of other similar things.   
      
      
            In combination with other descriptors, it can be.   
      
      
      
   ak>  For instance, there many regions   
                      |there are many regions   
      
   ak>  or areas in Russia. _The_ area where I live   
      
      
            So far, so good.  Other examples:   
      
                  the kitchen door   
                  the blue flowers in the garden   
                  the house that Jack built   
                  the people who live downstairs   
      
      
      
   ak>  is located in western part of Russia.   
   ak>  (IMHO no article before "western" either, because   
   ak>  "western" is a determiner itself).   
      
      
            Ah... I think I see part of the problem here.  Some time ago you were   
   asking me about determiners, and apart from a brief reference in a high school   
   textbook I found very little information about them.  Perhaps this is an issue   
   which often arises in Russian where it doesn't in English.   
      
            Since you asked again I've been researching the topic a bit more, and   
   I've found some further information which gives me a better handle on it.  For   
   now I'll just say that in English "Moscow" is a noun which may also be used as   
   an adjective while "western" is an adjective which may also be used as a noun.   
      
            From where I sit neither is a determiner.  What I see is that in your   
   mind Russia is divided, for purposes of this discussion, into two parts.  From   
   my POV you'd be using determiners if you said "I live in this part... not that   
   one".  We don't use articles there.  But to native speakers of English it will   
   seem that where there's a western part there must be an eastern part too.  :-)   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)